Mateo Swaim-Brouwer, 21, shoveled gravel in the hot sun Tuesday at a home under construction on a Cotati cul-de-sac. It was manual labor, without pay, rewarded only by a pizza lunch break with his co-workers.
Swaim-Brouwer, wearing a neon green Habitat for Humanity T-shirt, was happy to be there. A simple matter of payback, he said, recalling the six months he and his mother were homeless, living in a shelter and on the streets of Santa Rosa.
The two-bedroom wood-frame home, beige with white trim, will soon house Jasmine Palmer and her two daughters in Habitat for Humanity’s 23rd home built in Sonoma County since 1984.
Having a roof overhead is “not something you take for granted when you’ve been homeless,” said Swaim-Brouwer, who grew up in Sonoma County and graduated from Ridgway High School in 2012. There’s an element of freedom to homelessness, he said, but it’s “not worth the cold nights and empty stomach.”
For nearly three years, Swaim-Brouwer has lived under the roof at Sanctuary House, a four-bedroom home in Cotati for young adults 18 to 24 coping with trauma, mental health challenges and potential homelessness. It’s one of the Community Support Network’s nine homes that provide services to nearly 200 people a year.
To continue reading this article by Guy Kovner, go to: http://www.pressdemocrat.com/n...elessness?artslide=0
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